structure of kde cvs modules, was Re: libkipi in kdesupport

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Wednesday 17 March 2004 15:37, Rob Kaper wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 11:16:04PM +0100, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> > -kdecorelibs would be kdecore, kdeui, kio, kparts and some others, i.e.
> > essential libraries
> > -kdeapplibs would be e.g. ksmartcard, kate, khtml, kioslave, libkonq and
> > others, also libkcddb from kdemultimedia and maybe this new libkipi,
> > basically all libraries which are part of kde.
> >
> > What would this bring ?
>
> Anything but an integrated desktop environment.

Hi Rob,

it seems you misunderstood me.

> The suggestions in this thread are completely the opposite of what KDE used
> to stand for.

No, really not.

> Every single time we make a component or application optional, we remove a
> layer of functionality from KDE. What this proposal amounts to is to turn
> KDE into a widget set that happens to be used by a HTML library and that
> happens to have applicationThis and applicationThat.
>
> We'd be back in 1996.
>
> KDE is not just "kdecorelibs" and "kdeapplibs". The KIO slaves, KHTML,

As I wrote: "core libs" and "app libs" *including* ioslaves and essential 
kparts. 

> Kicker, Kicker, the application modules: they're all equally part of KDE.

No. They have the same importance, but they are not equally. libs and ioslaves 
are framework, kicker (and others) is the desktop (a special collection of 
apps), apps are apps.

I didn't propose "let's split every lib in it's own module and release every 
lib on its own". Actually I suggested more the opposite:
let's move more things to the lib level, so that we get less dependancies, 
i.e. most things would only depend on the libs, no matter in which module 
they are.
This would make it easier to release apps or modules consisting of apps 
independently. It wouldn't force us to do it.
Splitting the current kdebase into "kdedesktop" and "kdebaseapps" would make 
sense with the current layout of the other modules: kicker, kwin, ksmserver 
form the "desktop" (as in "extended window manager"), while e.g. konqueror is 
a very fundamental app (but it's not the desktop). This is the same grouping 
as we have in other modules: in kdenetwork are network centric apps, in 
kdegraphics are more or less graphic apps (... kghostview, kpdf....) in 
kdepim are more or less pim apps (and apps which depend on the same libs as 
the pim apps). So in kdedesktop there would be the desktop apps.

I don't understand why people see the current layout of cvs like something god 
given which can't be improved.

Bye
Alex
-- 
Work: alexander.neundorf at jenoptik.com - http://www.jenoptik-los.de
Home: neundorf at kde.org                - http://www.kde.org
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